| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: writes that the priests at Alexandria together and in common
governed the churches, as did also the apostles, and
afterwards all bishops throughout all Christendom, until the
Pope raised his head above all.
This teaching shows forcefully that the Pope is the very
Antichrist, who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself
against Christ because he will not permit Christians to be
saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, and
is neither ordained nor commanded by God. This is, properly
speaking to exalt himself above all that is called God as Paul
says, 2 Thess. 2, 4. Even the Turks or the Tartars, great
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: declaring he was going to get up, and must have breakfast brought
to him at eight.
"And see that my mare is saddled at half-past eight, and tell my
grandfather when he's down that I'm better this morning and am
gone for a ride."
He had been awake an hour, and could rest in bed no longer. In
bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up,
though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which
offers some resistance to the past--sensations which assert
themselves against tyrannous memories. And if there were such a
thing as taking averages of feeling, it would certainly be found
Adam Bede |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: were most wonderful pages full of the Duomo at Milan, and again of
Florence; he described the Apennines, and how they differed from the
Alps, and how in some village like Chiavari happiness lay all around
you, ready made.
The poor aunt was under the spell. She saw the far-off country of
love, she saw, hovering above the land, the angel whose tenderness
gave to all that beauty a burning glow. She was drinking in the letter
at long draughts; how should it have been otherwise? The girl who had
put love from her was now a woman ripened by repressed and pent-up
passion, by all the longings continually and gladly offered up as a
sacrifice on the altar of the hearth. Mlle. Armande was not like the
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